So, when I was doing my thesis on whether or not fanfiction should be considered a legitimate genre of literature, my advising professor asked me for examples. I gave him the generic ones, of course - “Pride & Prejudice and Zombies” is a horror fanfic of “Pride & Prejudice”, “50 Shades of Grey” is an erotica fic of “Twilight" - and that seemed to make him understand what fanfiction is, but not how it’s useful. So I thought about it, and, after about a minute, I said, “Paradise Lost is basically a fanfiction of the Book of Genesis. And The Divine Comedy is an epic self-insertion fic for Catholic doctrine. So, basically, you were teaching us fanfiction last semester.” I had never before seen a grown man’s eyes widen with such fear, incomprehension, disgust, awe, and understanding.
So I’m on AO3 and I see a lot of people who put “I do not own [insert fandom here]” before their story.
Like, I came on this site to read FAN fiction. This is a FAN fiction site. I’m fully aware that you don’t own the fandom or the characters. That’s why it’s called FAN FICTION.
Oh you youngins… How quickly they forget.
Back in the day, before fan fiction was mainstream and even encouraged by creators… This was your “please don’t sue me, I’m poor and just here for a good time” plea.
Cause guess what? That shit used to happen.
yep I did that. Everyone did. It’s honestly quite liberating to not have to put that disclaimer on your story.
I believe some sites, including fanfiction.net, used to actively require it on every story.
….god, one ages fast in fandom.
Yes ff.net REQUIRED it as did LJ in early 2001-2002 and people lost some fantastic stories because of not having a disclaimer. Hell I lost about 83,000 words to not having a disclaimer
People used to have lots of fun with the disclaimers too. I once had too much fun with it… Got my account locked in ff net for having too long a disclaimer XD
Christ, I’ve only been reading fic for about four years and I remember this being a Mandatory Thing. Times change, I guess.
my biggest pet peeve wiht the english language is that you don’t have sin/sina
in swedish if u have two people who use the same pronoun u can always tell whos doing what bc its like ‘han tog sin väska’ (he took his[own] bag) and ‘han tog hans väska’ would be that he took the other persons bag
but in english its like if u have 2 ppl w/ the same pronoun:
“she took her bag” whose bag????WHose BAG was it her OWN bag or the other her’s bag??????????????
“he ate his donuts” were the donuts his own???? did he fucking eat someone elses donuts??? YIU DONT KNOW bc english is a bullshit language
its funny that people are calling this the gay fanfiction dilemma bc thats literally why i made this post. i was writing a gay fanfic.
I agree, all men should learn about women’s sexuality by reading My Immortal.
Hi friend! Foz here. Just a couple of points:
- I’ve specified good fanfiction in literally the first tweet. While this is, obviously, a value judgement wherein YMMV, My Immortal is famous for being arguably the most terrible fanfic ever written, and is therefore demonstrably not what I’m talking about. Similarly, I’ve seen other responses to this post bring up 50 Shades, which, despite its popularity in mainstream circles, is pretty much universally regarded as being not just terrible fanfic, but an excruciatingly bad and dangerously inaccurate portrayal of BDSM that romanticises abuse. So no: these are not the droids you’re looking for.
- Here’s the thing, though: you already knew that. The decision to respond to this post with a flippant reference to a fic that’s notorious precisely because of its poor quality is exactly why I used up precious Twitter characters to specify good fanfic, even though I shouldn’t have had to. Every mode of artistic expression is composed of good, bad and mediocre works, but when it comes to genres that are traditionally viewed as less worthy or literary - like fanfiction, or romance - we have a reflexive tendency to conflate the bad with the whole, such that the good is implied to be either exceptional or nonexistant. I specified that I’m talking about good fanfiction, not because I think such fics are an exalted minority, but to pre-emptively combat the assertion that they are, and then you’ve gone and made it anyway. So, thanks for that.
- But while we’re on the subject of quality, let’s make a very important distinction. Though fanfic is a largely unmediated medium, it’s not bad; it’s amateur, in the very literal, dictionary-definition sense of engaging or engaged in without payment; non-professional. While there’s a stereotype that lots of ficwriters are teenage girls - which, why is that always wielded as an insult? oh right, misogyny, carry on - a lot of us are, in fact, grown-ass adults of varying genders, some of whom also happen to write professionally in other contexts; like me, for instance. I’ve read fanfics that are unquestionably as good as, if not better than, many professionally published works I’ve read, some I’ve simply enjoyed or felt meh about, and others where I’ve mounted up on my Nopetopus and ridden off into the sunset after the first paragraph. It’s a grab bag, is what I’m saying, but if you think that’s an inherently different spectrum of enjoyment over quality than applies to any other medium, then I’d politely invite you to reconsider the matter.
- In conclusion: fanfic might not be your bag, but it has its own culture of editing, collaboration, publication, criticism and dissemination, its own conventions and subversions of same, its own extensive history and trope awareness, and, yes, its near-unique status as a medium invested in female sexual desire. That doesn’t mean there aren’t other things straight dudes can do to learn the mystical ways of What Women Want like, oh, say, talking to them, always bearing in mind that women are not a goddamn hivemind, but given that there are a frightening number of guys out there whose first or primary exposure to any type of porn is whatever degrading mainstream het they can scrouge up for free without virusing the hell out of their PCs, then yeah: I’m gonna go out on a fucking limb and suggest they maybe balance it out with some fanfic.
This might be the best summary of the power of fan fiction and its inherent lessons about women’s sexuality that I’ve ever seen.
theactualcluegirl, have you seen this yet? I seem to recall some conversations with you along these very lines. Or I could be imagining them because it just seems like a very you thing.
listen, there is absolutely nothing that gets me going like mutual seemingly unrequited pining like? i live for both people losing their minds over the other person in bitter silence. savoring every single accidental brush of their fingers, elbows, thighs, every stray glance, memorizing every gesture or expression they catch while the other isn’t looking, all while being absolutely convinced that it’s one-sided only to finally!! finally find out it wasn’t in a triumphant moment of bliss after years and years of delicious, soul-rending, torturous, heart-wrenching pining. i literally don’t care about the fact that this trope is predictable af and always plays out the same way i will still go wild over it every single time like they’ll be doing the same reveal scene i have seen a million times and i’m still on the edge of my seat gasping “are they gonna kiss???”
i regret ever making this post because as a result people keep recommending me heterosexual love stories like “you’ll love this!” really. will i linda? will i
Hurt/Comfort is such an interesting thing. It’s basically an entire genre of fanfiction. I’d argue it satisfies a very basic, vital need–the same way that horror satisfies the basic need to be scared in a safe, controllable space.
And yet it doesn’t really have an equivalent outside of fan culture. "Tearjerkers” can sometimes come close, they’re probably the closest thing to a mainstream hurt/comfort genre that there is. But those types of books and movies don’t usually focus on the “comfort” aspect in the same way, and don’t make use of tension and release.
I think every good hurt/comfort fic makes use of tension and release just as horror does,
whether the writer is consciously aware of it or not. Though of course the tension and release in h/c comes from different sources than in horror. Instead of anticipating something frightening, you anticipate the intimacy and/or validation that comes from the “comfort” part you know is eventually coming. That’s what provides release of the tension built up during the “hurt” scenes.
I could write a goddamned essay about this it’s so fascinating.
Why Did You Capitalize The Word ‘Cabbage’ But Not The Word ‘France’ : an adventure in reading fanfiction
coming soon, the thrilling sequel: ‘You’ve Gone Through Three Different Tenses In The Space Of One Paragraph And I Think You Just Invented A Whole New One All Of Your Own’
and the long anticipated conclusion to the trilogy: ‘I Have No Idea Who Is Supposed To Be Speaking Right Now’
Don’t forget the essential supplemental texts, That Does Not Physically Work and Anything Is Lube.
Decorated by the thrilling prequel series How Many Ways Can You Describe A Person Using Epithets And Not Their Name, featuring You’re Somehow Convinced That Three Paragraphs of Clothing Detail is Important and Thrilling, and I Have Never Beheld Something So Out Of Character In My Life
Please don’t forget the charming brochure The Most Intimidatingly Huge Paragraphs Of Our Times. There is also the sister novella Multiple Characters Speaking In The Same Paragraph, and the loosely-connected-but-not-strictly-necessary side series Forgoing Punctuation: Misadventures With Enigmatic Run-On Sentences.
That Doesn’t Exist in this Universe and You’re Not Writing an AU: A Leaflet on Anachronisms.
Why Did You Choose the Second Person Over Literally Anything Else, a primer on POV.
Weirdly Specific Fetishes And You: An Introductory Guide to Oversharing With Your Readers.
I discovered a nice little coffee shop near my apartment, and instead of thinking “this is very convenient,” my first thought was my life’s coffee shop au is about to begin
Update: I was at the aforementioned coffee shop and this guy sat down next to me near the window. A pretty barista came over with his drink, and she said to him: “This isn’t right. You’re supposed to sit at the counter! You’re supposed to tell me stories!” And the guy laughed, and they both looked at the counter (where all the spots were taken) and he was like, “We could kick someone out.” And she was like, “I would do that! Which one?” And they joked around a bit more, and then she went back to the behind the counter, and as soon as someone vacated their spot he moved all his stuff over to the counter, and I realized, this is not my coffee shop au. I am in their coffee shop au.
- The fic starts out great, nice style, language, captivating summary. It’s unfinished and has been abandoned since 2013.
- The fic is complete, nice style, language, tons of kudos speak for themselves. It’s about your NOTP.
- The fic is about your OTP, it’s complete, it’s kinky as hell. The plot is absolutely dumbass.
- The plot sounds great, it’s about your OTP, it’s complete. The characters are horribly OOC.
- Everything is perfect in this fic, starting from the first letter and ending with the last full stop. It’s exactly 800 words long.
- The fic’s word count is a six-figure number, it’s about your OTP, characters are compliant with your head-canon. It’s dull and boring as seven hells.
- The beginning is enthralling, everything’s great, the plot, the style, it’s long and it’s even about your OTP. It features something that makes you close the tab as soon as you open it, like father/daughter incest or mpreg or some other squicky thing.
- Everything is perfect in this fic, the length, the characters, the language, the style, you forget you’re reading fanfic, thinking it’s a masterpiece of true literature, you cry tears of joy and write a huge review full of gushing love and then rush to the author’s profile to read every other thing they’ve written. It’s their only work.
